Chesapeake Energy Corp. shareholders rejected two directors involved in a probe of Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon's personal finances after slumping energy prices and overspending wiped out $2.6 billion in market value this year.

V. Burns Hargis and Richard K. Davidson, members of the company's audit committee, offered to resign after receiving support of 26 percent and 27 percent of votes cast, respectively, at the annual meeting at Chesapeake's Oklahoma City headquarters today. The board doesn't have to accept the resignations and will review them “in due course,” according to a statement.

McClendon has been under increasing scrutiny from investors and analysts for obtaining personal loans from some of the company's biggest financiers and for a wrong-way bet on natural-gas prices that worsened a cashflow shortfall. Chesapeake's two largest shareholders plan to take control of the board this month as McClendon approaches the end of a 23-year reign as chairman of the company he co-founded.